Fantastic Stories Presents the Fantastic Universe Super Pack #3. Fredric Brown
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“We are sure takin’ a powder,” D’Ambrosia yelps. “Look at the monitor!”
We see fish gaping at us from the screen that even Earth citizens with delirium tremens never saw, and I look quite anxiously at the instrument panel.
“A thousand miles per and we are climbin’,” I says. “I am glad this Hitler used old Germanic on his subs, and that I majored in it once. I—er—I am gettin’ arthritis all at once! The bends! Uh—er—look, peel them suits off the other creeps and fast, Zahooli, as I bet they can be inflated and made into compression chambers. They have got connections that plug into something.”
We pull on the suits which were too big for the beetleheads and for a good reason. More bends than there are in the Ohio River are with us before we plug into the right socket. The suits bulge out until our feet almost leave the floor. I grin through my helmet at Wurpz.
The sub keeps purring and purring. The altimeter registers four thousand feet. It is a caution, an altimeter in a sub. Two hours later we shoot out through a hole deep under the coast of Brazil and I know we are in the ocean as the monitor shows some old wrecked ships about three miles from us. We disconnect the Subterro anti-bends kimonos and peel them off. Agrodyte Hitler is moving two of his arms when we climb toward the surface.
“Hah, we will make a sucker out of history,” I says to Wurpz. “And wait until we show this creep to Professor Zalpha and Exmud R. Zmorro.”
We come to the surface and contact an Earthian Franco-Austro atomic luxury liner. The skipper’s pan registers on the viso-screen. “This is Septimus Spink,” I says. “Commander of Inner Spaceship Magnificent Mole. I have come from the center of Earth with a captured Subterro submarine and Agrodyte Hitler, the Neofeuhrer. Over and out.”
The universe goes into a cosmic dither when we slide into a berth in Hampton Rhodus. Thousands of citizens hail us as we ride to Metropolita in a Supercaddijet. Behind us in a truck trailer made mostly of transparent duralucite is our captive, the descendant of Adolph Hitler and three dead Subterro beetle people.
“Well, you won’t give up so easy on a Spink from now on,” I says to Zahooli. “We are heroes and will get medals. First thing we have to do, though,” I says to Coordinator One sitting in the jet sedan with us, “is to take care of the hole Earth has in its head. All we have to do is drop that new bomb down the tunnel we made and it will wash up all those subs that are left and most likely cause a flood that will inundate Subterro. What do you think?”
The brass is still tongue-tied. “One thing I must do and that is see that a certain insecticide manufacturer gets a plug on Interplanetary TV,” I continue. “Ha, we took the bugs out of this planet. It should work quite smooth from now on.”
“I still believe in reincarnation,” D’Ambrosia Zahooli says. “I have the darndest feeling I’ve been through almost as big nightmares with you before, Sep.”
*
Interplanetary Press, Circa 2022, Junius XXIV—Professor Apsox Zalpha, eminent professor of cosmogony, and Exmud R. Zmorro, leading news analyst of seven worlds, have entered the Metropolita Neuropsychiatorium for a routine checkup. They emphatically denied that it was connected in any way with a lecture given recently by Septimus Spink, first man to explore inner space, at the Celestial Cow Palace in San Francisco. Both men expect to remain for two weeks. “Of course there is nothing wrong with either of us,” Professor Zalpha told your correspondent. “But if you see a beetle, please do not step on it. It could be somebody’s mother.”
He broke off, glaring at the object that still dangled from his clenched left fist; the others gaped silently at the veil he held up—a wisp of gossamer that was never spun by human distaff.
G-r-r-r . . . !
by Roger Arcot
Roger Arcot explores the fringes of a really never forgotten world, the introduction to which is an aged manuscript De Necromantiae, and the wish, not too repressed, to pledge your soul to the Devil! There are many strange memories and unhappy frustrated souls in this Fantastic Universe of ours—strange and sinister memories and stranger urges, frightening urges that refuse to die in the heart of Brother Ambrose.
He had borne the thousand and one injuries with humility and charity. But the insults! These were more than he could suffer . . . .
GR-R-R! There he goes again! Brother Ambrose could scarce restrain the hatred that seethed and churned in his breast, as his smallish eyes followed Brother Lorenzo headed once more for his beloved geraniums, the inevitable watering-pot gripped in both hands, the inevitable devotions rising in a whispered stream from his saintly lips. The very fact the man lived was a mockery to human justice: God’s blood, but if thoughts could only kill.
Ave, Virgo!
The thousand and one injuries of Fray Lorenzo he had borne as a Christian monk should, with humility and charity. But the insults, aye, the insults to faith and reason! They were more than a generous Father could expect His most adoring servant to suffer, weren’t they? To have to sit next to the man, for instance, at evening meal and hear his silly prattle of the weather. Next year’s crop of cork: we can scarcely expect oak-galls, he says. Isn’t petroselinum the name for parsley? (No, it’s Greek, you swine. And what’s the Greek name for Swine’s Snout? I could hurl it at you, like the Pope hurling anathema.) Salve tibi! It sticks in one’s craw to bless him with the rest. Would God our cloister numbered thirty-and-nine instead of forty.
For days now, for weeks, Brother Ambrose had witnessed and endured the false piety of the man. How he’d ever got admitted to the order in the first place beat all supposition. It must have been his sanctimonious apple-cheeks or (Heaven forbid such simony), some rich relative greased the palm of the Prior. Saint, forsooth!
Brother Ambrose recalled just a week previous; they had been outside the walls, a round dozen of the brothers, gathering the first few bushels of grapes to make the good Benedictine wine. And all men tended to their duty in the vineyard—save who? Save lecherous Lorenzo, whose job was to attend the press. Picked the assignment himself, most likely, so he could ogle the brown thighs and browner ankles of Dolores squatting on the Convent bank, gitana slut with her flashing eyes and hint of sweet delight in those cherry-red lips and coquettish tossing shoulders. A man could see she was child of the devil, flesh to tempt to eternal hellfire.
But how skillful Brother Lorenzo had been in keeping the glow in his dead eye from being seen by the others! Only Ambrose had known it was there. Invisible to even the world, perhaps; but lurking just the same in Lorenzo’s feverishly disguised brain. Si, there and lusting beyond a doubt. By one’s faith, the blue-black hair of Dolores would make any weak man itch; and the stories that had floated on the breeze that day, livelily exchanged between her and that roguish Sanchicha, the lavandera; Lorenzo must surely have lapped them all up like a hungry spaniel, though he cleverly turned his head away so you would not guess. After all, Ambrose, scarcely a step closer, could recall clearly every word of the bawdy tales!
Back to the table again; and Brother Ambrose once more noticed how Fray Lorenzo never let his fork and knife lie crosswise, an obvious tribute he, himself, always made in Our Senor’s praise. Nor did Lorenzo honor the Trinity by drinking his orange-pulp in three quiet sips; rather (the Arian heretic) he drained